The 10 hardest jobs to fill

If the laws of supply and demand work, there’s extra opportunity for job hunters who have skills and interests in what hirers say are the 10 toughest positions to fill.

A word of warning, though: Some of these jobs are hard to fill because they require specific or advanced professional skills. Others are hard to fill because they’re low-paying, don’t appeal to everyone or are just plain hard work.

Precisely because these jobs are hard to fill, human resource experts say employers need to look beyond the usual “qualified” candidates and not demand a “perfect fit” to walk through the door.

More than a million nurses are needed to fill the growing need and to replace the number of registered nurses who are expected to retire by 2022.

According to a CareerCast report shared by the Society for Human Resource Management, some hirers are stepping up innovative recruiting. Others are relaxing their strict screening requirements.

Here’s the hardest-to-hire list, with comments from the experts:

Data scientist: This job analyzes big data, a field that’s difficult to define. The job varies by company and industry. CareerCast thinks 4.4 million such information technology jobs will be open next year.

(www.cedsolutions.com This job requires skills in Database Management, Querying, and Analytics. To have the skills to do this job, attend our Microsoft 2-week course for MCSA: SQL 2014 Server, followed up with the MCSE: Business Intelligence SQL 2014 Server course)

Electrical engineer: Randstad US estimates there are 17 openings for every electrical engineering candidate. Experts see a geographical imbalance between job hunters and job locations, with too many qualified engineers in Los Angeles and New York and too many openings in Chicago, Houston and San Diego.

General operations manager: The demand for people who can run a business from day to day is expected to grow 12.4 percent over the next seven years.

Home health aide: A whopping 48 percent increase in demand is expected over the next seven years, largely because of aging baby boomers. But the low median salary of just $20,820 a year limits interest in the job.

Marketing manager: The National Association of Colleges and Employers says marketing, especially digital or social media marketing, means fertile hiring ground for new college graduates (or anyone else with the skills).

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